Today let’s talk about dinner invitations. More specifically, having accepted a dinner invitation, you then find that you can’t make it. For whatever reason.

(Of course, the golden rule is that once you have accepted a dinner invitation, you MUST go. Unless you’re lying on a mortuary slab)

Assuming that you have a really good reason for not being able to turn up to a dinner, a few things should be done:

1. If you already know in sufficient advance that you will not be able to make it, then you should call up the organiser and inform them.
2. Ask the organiser / your host if it is okay for you to send a representative. Sometimes the invitation comes to you not because of you, but because you are there to represent your company / organisation.
3. If you can’t get in touch with the organiser, despite all best efforts, then send a message through one of the other invitees.
4. If you can’t get in touch with the organiser, and you don’t know / can’t get in touch with the other invitees, leave a message at the venue (hotel reception, restaurant manager etc)
5. If all else fails, prepare to buy an expensive “I am sorry” gift, and start writing your apology card.

What do I mean by ‘sufficient’? Preferably, a few days before. Though this can be all the way until a few hours before the event – as long as the guests are not yet seated, it is still possible for a host to pull out a guest tag from the table.

NEVER EVER assume that one guest is as good as another, and send a junior (and less able) representative to take your place at the eleventh hour. If you need to send someone to take your place, find someone of equivalent rank as you or someone higher. Ask a favour from a colleague / peer.

Some unschooled individuals, when invited to dinner, and then find that they cannot make it, then choose the unwise option of sending a less capable officer to the dinner.

This happened to me last week. My dinner table was all set, with the guest of honour an out-of-towner. All guests had been chosen for their position and their wit. Also included in the consideration was whether they would have something to add to what was about to be an academic and substantive discussion.

I should have known when the guest I invited because he was the CEO of his organisation then delegated the job to his next-in-command. I said nothing, thinking that I did not know the next-in-command at all and still hoping that as a senior individual, he would be able to carry his side of the conversation.

Then on the night of the dinner, while we were about to sit down, a woman comes in and whispers to my staff that she is there to replace her male supervisor who apparently could not make it, but yet still had the time to instruct someone else to be present.

It was too late then to change the seating, so I started praying for the best. Unfortunately, it was not my night.

Not only did the substitute fail to carry on any kind of decent conversation, she was outrageously slurping her soup for what it was worth. (I know the soup was good – I just did not believe that people still slurped in polite company).

I suppose I should have read the signs when we sat down to be served, and she asked for a fork and spoon while the rest of us picked up our chopsticks.

[By the way, note to all aspiring internationalists: learn how to at least use a chopstick]

It was an unkind thing my original guest did – to find a substitute who was so out of her depth. The kinder thing would have been to leave the place vacant and then make their apologies later. It would have been easier to remove one place at the table than to have the guests play musical chairs. Or worse – to have an uncouth person at the table.

It was a miserable situation for me as the host. And I’m sure she was not enjoying herself either. Except for the soup.